FILM 1915: LILO & STITCH

FILM 1915: LILO & STITCH

TRIVIA: The name "Lilo" means "Generous One" and its origin is Hawaiian. It can also be interpreted as "Lost" and this would give the song title "He Mele No Lilo" a loose translation as "Lullaby of the Lost". The name Nani means "Beautiful" in Hawaiian.

Disney promoted this movie with a series of trailers inserting Stitch into some of its "classic" titles. Examples: 

The Little Mermaid (1989): Stitch surfs a wave that crashes down on Ariel.

Beauty and the Beast (1991): Stitch causes the chandelier to fall during the ballroom scene, nearly smashing Belle and the Beast

Aladdin (1992): Stitch steals Princess Jasmine from Aladdin during the "A Whole New World" magic carpet ride.

The Lion King (1994): Stitch takes Simba's place on Pride Rock during the "Circle of Life" opening.

Hawaii-born cast members Jason Scott Lee and Tia Carrere helped the writers with dialog and accents.

Although it uses computer-colored (but hand-drawn) digital cels instead of hand-painted ones, this was the first Disney animated feature to use watercolor-painted backgrounds since Dumbo (1941). A conscious effort was made to give the film a warmer, more old-fashioned look than most other modern Disney films: this film does not use the "Deep Canvas" technique used in Tarzan (1999), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), or Treasure Planet (2002); it only contains about five shots which use either a "multiplane camera" or "3D camera" effect; and the use of tone mattes (shading/shadows on the characters) was kept to a minimum.

Like the live-action monster movie that appears briefly, photographs of Elvis Presley are real pictures and not animated drawings.

Most of the license plates in the film (the fire engine, gas tanker, and Nani's Beetle - but only at the end, not at "blue punch buggy" - plus one in Lilo's room) are A113. The same as Mrs. Davis's plate number in Toy Story (1995), Mater's plate number in Cars (2006), and also used in many other Disney and Pixar films. It is a reference to a room number at California Institute of the Arts, where many of the animators at those two companies received their educations. The fuel truck in the volcano has the license number "A113". A113 was the room for the animation department at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts; the room now houses graphic design classes). During the 1970s, directors John Musker and Ron Clements, in addition to Disney/Pixar animation executive John Lasseter and Pixar director Brad Bird, studied animation in room A113. "A113" labels are hidden in many Disney and Pixar films.

After completing this film, director Chris Sanders's next project for Disney was Bolt(2008). When John Lasseter took over as head of animation at Disney, he dismissed Sanders, who then moved on to DreamWorks Animation.

Since Lilo's parents died in a car accident, where rain made the road more treacherous, it is possible the reason she wants to appease Pudge by feeding him peanut butter sandwiches and cleaning his grove for him is because she believes he controls the weather, and that if she continues to treat him in such a manner, a similar accident to the one that killed her parents won't happen again.

FILM 1852: THE MEG

FILM 1852: THE MEG

TRIVIA: In real life, Jason Statham is an expert swimmer. In the 1990 Commonwealth Games, he represented England in diving. Footage of him competing can be found online. Most of the shots of him in the water are real. A stunt double was used for more hazardous shots.

In the book, the megalodons are pure white, almost luminescent, from living in an environment with virtually no light. This coloring proved too difficult to render in CGI while still looking realistic, so the megalodons were colored like great white sharks.

Eli Roth was attached as director before being replaced by Jon Turteltaub. Roth left due to creative differences with the studio, namely that he wanted the film to maintain both its R-rating and a $150 million budget. It was also rumored that Roth, on top of writing and directing, also wanted to play the lead role of Jonas, but the studio believed he did not have the star power.

The film is based on the book "MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror," the first book that author Steve Alten ever published.

The Meg (2018) was filmed in New Zealand.

The name of the boat at the end of the film is "Charlotte." This is also the name of the ship that the character Benjamin Franklin Gates searches for in National Treasure (2004), which was also directed by Jon Turteltaub.

Featured on Episode #196 on the podcast "How Did This Get Made?".

These pool inspired paintings have me dreaming about a pool holiday…

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

TRIVIA: The license plate pulled from the shark's teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws (1975).

For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real live shark. He was only allowed to shoot this once he had completed all his other scenes.

The orange colored mini-sub visible in the wet-entry area was the same mini-sub seen in the end of Sphere (1998), also starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Preacher's description of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (Tom Scoggins: "I spent four years at CalTech, and that's the best physics explanation I've ever heard.") is adapted from a quote by Einstein himself: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

Samuel L. Jackson was initially offered the role played by LL Cool J. Jackson's management didn't like the idea of him playing a chef so director Renny Harlin created the role of Russell Franklin for him, Jackson stated about Harlin casting him as Franklin "He said, 'Now you're going to be the richest man in the world, and you're going to have the greatest scene in the movie, and it's going to be a shock to everyone!" Jackson recalled. "He sent it back, [and the part] was Russell Franklin, and I was like 'Yeah, this was great.' I've done a lot of different things in movies, or had a lot of things happen to me in the movies, but nothing like what happens to me in this one."

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Renny Harlin: as one of the workers of Aquatica that are heading home for the weekend on the supply boat.

http://www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/2018/07/12/anthony-zinonos/

FILM 1756: THE SHAPE OF WATER

FILM 1756: THE SHAPE OF WATER

TRIVIA: When "The Shape of Water" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, the screening was held in the Elgin Theatre. The interior scenes of the theater in the film were shot in the Elgin Theatre, so as the audience was watching the film, they were seeing the same theater on screen that they were sitting in.

Director Guillermo del Toro said about Sally Hawkins, "Not only was she the first choice, she was the only choice. I wrote the movie for Sally, I wrote the movie for Michael [Shannon]... Sally is - I wanted the character of Elisa to be beautiful, in her own way, not in a way that is like a perfume commercial kind of way. That you could believe that this character, this woman would be sitting next to you on the bus. But at the same time she would have a luminosity, a beauty, almost magical, ethereal."

Guillermo Del Toro wrote lengthy backstories for each of the major characters, some of them allegedly running over 40 pages long. After casting the roles, he offered them to the actors and said they could choose to utilize or ignore the backstories for their own character. The actors responded differently, with Richard Jenkins saying he ignored the backstory, stating "the only thing that matters is what happens on screen", while Michael Stuhlbarg said he read the backstory voraciously and found it helpful in his performance.

The creature design is heavily inspired by the film The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Michael Shannon's character even says they picked it up in a river in South America, which is the setting of The Creature from the film.

One day after completing her demanding underwater scenes for this film, Sally Hawkins had to fly to London, England, to begin production on Paddington 2. Only to find out she would have to shoot underwater scenes for that film on the first day of filming.

The last name of the main character Elisa Esposito is of Italian origin, and is given to children who were abandoned or exposed.

After seeing the trailer, Kevin Smith tweeted, "Seeing something as beautiful as this makes me feel stupid for ever calling myself a 'Director.'"

One of Octavia Spencer's favorite things about the screenplay was the fact that, by letting the main couple be mute, most of the dialogue comes from a black woman and a closeted gay man. In real life, they would both have experienced oppression during the 1960s setting of the film.

Most of the characters were written with the actors in mind. Octavia Spencer said her character was reminiscent of a collaboration between her roles in The Help (2011) and Hidden Figures (2016), and that she "would have played the desk if Guillermo del Torohad asked me to."

The poem in the film is by the Persian poet Rumi : "Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love, it humbles my heart, for you are everywhere."

Despite visual similarities, director Guillermo del Toro denied that this film has any connections to Hellboy (2004).

FILM 1736: A CURE FOR WELLNESS

TRIVIA: Filmed at the Castle Hohenzollern in Hechingen, Germany.

Originally, Hans Zimmer was attached to compose the music for this film but he dropped out to focus on Dunkirk (2017). He was replaced by Benjamin Wallfisch.

A Cure For Wellness is a play on the word "Aquifer" which is used to make the patients "well" in the movie.

The building of the sanatorium is originally located in Beelitz-Heilstätten, an old tuberculosis clinic. The building itself and the area around it have been completely renovated after being a ruin for decades. 750 windows (1,000 sq m of glass), 350 doors, 1,200 sq m of walls and many other things had to be replaced or repaired to restore the original look of the building.

FILM 1724: IT

TRIVIA: Bill Skarsgård did research into the "psycho universe" to find his own way to perform Pennywise. He got inspiration from The Shining (1980).

A lot of the lines were actually improvised by the kids. Most of the Richie/Eddie banter was improv. Jack Dylan Grazer (Eddie) actually wrote a lot of Finn Wolfhard's (Richie) jokes.

Grossed the largest box office record for any Horror film with $117.1 million dollar opening weekend.

Around the time of the theatrical release of this film, in Lititz, Pennsylvania, there was a prank that involved a series of red balloons tied to sewer grates throughout the town mimicking one of the book covers of the "It" novel. The prank had frightened the citizens, including the Lititz police force.

Shipped to cinemas under the code name "POUND FOOLISH" a literal opposite to Pennywise.

The cast of the "Losers Club" were asked whom they wanted to play their adult parts: Finn Wolfhard (Richie Tozier) said Bill Hader, Sophia Lillis (Beverly Marsh) said Jessica Chastain, Chosen Jacobs (Mike Hanlon) said Chadwick Boseman, Jack Dylan Grazer (Eddie Kaspbrak) said Jake Gyllenhaal, Wyatt Oleff (Stanley Uris) said Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeremy Ray Taylor (Ben Hanscom) said Chris Pratt and Jaeden Lieberher (Bill Denbrough) said Christian Bale.

http://fabricofmylife.co.uk/2017/06/12/fab-flat-bedroom-styling/

FILM 1657: AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD

TRIVIA: Werner Herzog claims to have written the screenplay in two and a half days. He wrote a good portion of it while traveling with his soccer team, during games and on bus rides. Following one game, the team was very drunk, and the player seated behind Herzog vomited on his typewriter, ruining many pages of the script. Herzog was unable to salvage the pages, and tossed them out the window. He was also unable to recall what he'd written on them.

The monkeys that appear at the end of the film were somewhat difficult to acquire. According to Werner Herzog's commentary, he paid the men who were to provide them only half of what they asked for, as he didn't trust them and thought they would try to run off with the money without providing the monkeys. He was proved right, as they had sold the monkeys to someone else and they were to be flown to Florida. In desperation, Herzog pretended he was the veterinarian and that the monkeys didn't have their vaccination documents, which allowed him to finally get the monkeys and film their scenes. After this, all the monkeys were set free into the wild.

During a particularly rowdy night of production, Klaus Kinski, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, repeatedly fired a Winchester rifle into it. One of the bullets took the tip of an unnamed extra's finger off. Werner Herzog immediately confiscated the weapon and it remains his property to this day.

This film, as well as several other early films by Werner Herzog, were shot on a 35mm camera that he stole as a young man from the Munich Film School, a predecessor to today's prestigious film school 'HFF München'. Herzog himself never was a film student there or anywhere. He readily admits to the theft but also justifies it with the significance of the films he's made with the camera and his right to artistic expression: "It was a very simple 35mm camera, one I used on many other films, so I do not consider it a theft. For me, it was truly a necessity. I wanted to make films and needed a camera. I had some sort of natural right to this tool. If you need air to breathe, and you are locked in a room, you have to take a chisel and hammer and break down a wall. It is your absolute right."[Cronin, 2003]

This was the first Werner Herzog film with Klaus Kinski. It was the start of an extremely stormy, and sometimes violent, professional relationship that lasted 15 years.

Although plot details and many of the characters in "Aguirre, the Wrath of God"(1972) come directly from Werner Herzog's own imagination, historians have pointed out that the film fairly accurately incorporates some 16th-century events and historical personages into a fictional narrative. The film's major characters, Aguirre, Ursúa, Don Fernando, Inez and Florés, were indeed involved in a 1560 expedition that left Peru to find the city of El Dorado. Commissioned by Peru's governor, Ursúa organized an expeditionary group of 300 men to travel by way of the Amazon River. He was accompanied by his mixed-race mistress, Doña Inez. At one point during the journey, Aguirre, a professional soldier, decided that he could use the 300 men to overthrow the Spanish rule of Peru. Aguirre had Ursúa murdered and proclaimed Fernando as "The Prince of Peru". Fernando himself was eventually murdered when he questioned Aguirre's scheme of sailing to the Atlantic, conquering Panama, crossing the isthmus and invading Peru. Many others who attempted to rebel against Aguirre were also killed. The surviving soldiers conquered Isla Margarita off the coast of Venezuela and made preparations to attack the mainland. However, by that time Spanish authorities had learned of Aguirre's plans, and when the rebels arrived in Venezuela, government agents offered full pardons to Aguirre's men. All of them accepted the deal. Immediately prior to his arrest, Aguirre murdered his daughter Florés, who had remained by his side during the entire journey. He was then captured and dismembered. Herzog's screenplay merged this 1560 expedition with the events of an earlier Amazonian journey, that took place in 1541 and 1542. Like Ursúa, Gonzalo Pizarro and his men entered the Amazon basin in search of El Dorado. Various troubles afflicted the expedition and, sure that El Dorado was very close, Pizarro set up a smaller group led by Francisco de Orellana to break off from the main force and forge ahead, then return with news of what they had found. This group utilized a brigantine to journey down the river. Accompanying Orellana was Spanish Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal, who kept a journal of the group's experiences. The historic Gaspar de Carvajal (1500-1584) had settled in Peru and dedicated himself to the conversion of the Indians. While Carvajal's diary does indeed exist, the content as presented in the film is mostly invented by writer/director Herzog himself.

The film was originally shot in English, the only language skills that all of the multi-national crew and cast members had in common. The original production sound was recorded on location, but finally not used because of its poor quality. The whole film was later post-synchronized into German. Director Werner Herzog claims that lead actor Klaus Kinski demanded too much money for the recording sessions and therefore another actor with a similar voice, Gerd Martienzen, dubbed him. Even audiences that have seen other performances of Kinski often can't tell the difference.

Francis Ford Coppola cited this film as an influence on Apocalypse Now (1979).

Aguirre's line "What is a throne but a plank red with velvet?" is an authentic quote from Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1971, while Werner Herzog was location scouting for the film in Peru, he narrowly avoided taking LANSA Flight 508. Herzog's reservation was cancelled due to a last-minute change in itinerary. The plane was later struck by lightning and disintegrated, but one survivor lived after a free fall. Long haunted by the event, nearly 30 years later he made a documentary film Wings of Hope (2000) about it, which explored the story of the sole survivor Juliane Koepcke.

Werner Herzog explained how the choir-like sound was created, "We used a strange instrument, which we called a 'choir-organ.' It has inside it three dozen different tapes running parallel to each other in loops. ... All these tapes are running at the same time, and there is a keyboard on which you can play them like an organ so that [it will] sound just like a human choir but yet, at the same time, very artificial and really quite eerie."

Ranked #46 on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time"

Featured in the teen book "Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.